SOVIETS EAGER TO SELL `PEACEFUL` ATOM BLASTS

A new Soviet trading company is trying to market the power of underground nuclear explosions for commercial application to anyone in the world who has the cash.

It is the first time that nuclear blasts are known to have been put up for sale, but the venture is surrounded by uncertainty given the political turbulence in the Soviet Union and rising opposition around the world to nuclear blasts.

The atomic explosions are being marketed by the International Chetek Corp. of Moscow, a private trading company tied to the Soviet arms complex.

Its initial goal is to carry out blasts in the Soviet Union for the incineration of toxic wastes. But the company says it eventually will try to do whatever the customer wants, as long as it is commercial and peaceful in nature, including conducting nuclear explosions in other nations.

The move has startled Western experts, who say nuclear blasts could damage the environment and that the nuclear devices would be at risk of falling into unfriendly hands.

Other experts, however, say the Soviet ideas may have technical merit and should be evaluated.

There apparently are no international accords that bar one country from selling nuclear devices to another for peaceful purposes.

The nascent marketing effort shows the lengths to which the crumbling Soviet bloc will go to acquire hard currency by converting military industries to civilian ones.

''We`re willing to entertain all ideas,'' said Danny Wolfson, an agent for Chetek at Ph.D. International Trading Inc., a small concern in Montreal.

''It doesn`t matter who, where or when. We have all the technologies and they`re going to be used.''

Wolfson said Chetek is owned by shareholders that include company officers, private Soviet enterprises, a scientific center, and most importantly, the Soviet ministry charged with production of nuclear weapons.

Of the world`s nuclear nations, only the Soviets have an extensive record of using underground nuclear blasts for civil ventures. Applications have included the creation of underground storage vaults, seismic exploration of geologic formations and the stimulation of gas and oil production.

Opposition to the fledging effort at commercializing the blasts is widespread among environmentalists and arms-control experts who know of it.

William Potter, an official of the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, tried to foster public debate over the marketing effort after visiting Chetek`s office in Moscow last month.

''Chetek is representative of a general danger,'' Potter said. ''Soviet weapons scientists are faced with tremendous economic hardships and are going to be tempted to sell their services to anyone who is prepared to provide hard currency.''

Weapons expert Ray Kidder of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California said the notion of using nuclear blasts to incinerate hazardous wastes and even nuclear warheads has technical merit.

''It would be cheapest way to dispose of them, by far,'' Kidder said.

''But lots of environmental questions would have to be settled. You`d also have to find ways to make sure the blasts would not be used covertly for the further development of nuclear arms.''

The Non-Proliferation Treaty, ratified in 1970, has no apparent prohibitions against commercial sales, as long as the blasts are for peaceful purposes. Its only conditions are that transfers from a nuclear power to a non-nuclear one occur ''under appropriate international observation and through appropriate international procedures,'' and that the price be fair.

For decades the Soviets have led the world in applying nuclear detonations to civilian efforts, conducting more than 120 blasts. The United States also investigated such peaceful applications of the atom, but dropped the effort in the 1970s as fears arose about the contamination of the environment with radioactive residue from the work.

The Soviet Union used the blasts to create underground cavities for storing fuels and disposing of chemical wastes. They also used blasts to extinguish stubborn fires in gas wells.